Browsing by Author "Jääskeläinen, Eeva"

Goals. The goal of this study was to examine what the concept of computational thinking means and what kind of skills are required to learn it. Further objectives were to explore the essence of coding and the main principals of teaching it when the target group was children under school age. The study maps teaching methods for coding and computational thinking suitable in early childhood education. The learning goals in official early childhood documents are examined to identify those information and communication technology skills that can be covered when teaching coding. Method. The study was carried out as a narrative literature review. The objective was to gain a general picture of the role of coding in the early childhood education. Initial sources were found by scanning books and articles in the educational sector. The search for further information was guided by the findings in the initial material. The search was ended when no additionally significant information was found. Results and conclusions. Computational thinking is based on mathematical, logical and creative thinking. The goal is to learn to think and formulate complicated problems in a way that allows a computer to solve them. It is possible to teach computational thinking and coding in early childhood. Teaching has to be concrete and related to a child’s experiences. Group work and teacher’s guidance are of significant value in learning. Coding can be taught by using traditional games, codable toys and electronic devices. The main barriers which prevented implementing coding in preschool education were the lack of teaching methods and inadequate computational skills of teachers. The age or interest of children was less relevant.